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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:39628

Hi Ian,

Thanks for typing all this for me. Really useful. I did some googling of my=
 own and I found that there was no concept of boolean in older versions of =
Python like you said. (BTW, how does this omission go well with proper lang=
uage design, as Oscar seems to have hinted?) I think this obvious shortcomm=
ing is the main reason that, for example, when x holds the value of 5, x is=
 considered to be "true". You see, I have to maintain Python files (ubuntu =
server scripts) which are 2000 lines long, all sequential code, no function=
s. While the person who wrote them should be shot :), the fact that there i=
s inherent ambiguity with value, none, null 0, you name it, in conditional =
statements is not helping me understand the code, and this adds to my frust=
ration.


I messed up my

if (some statement):            # short form

in the example I gave, but you figured exactly what I mean. Of course if th=
e condition (some statement) is boolean there is no point adding "=3D=3D tr=
ue" or similar. But if (some statement) represents a value this is where I =
have trouble and again the origins of this date back to when Python had no =
boolean type. So now at least I understand it.

Btw, there are still languages with no boolean type today, MySQL for one. T=
his creates big efficiency problems when fetching data from the database in=
to a C# program - what should be a bool is fetched as an 8-byte integer! Bu=
t that's a different story. I shut up now.

As I said I am new to Python, learning it, I have to get more experience wi=
th passing parameter values to functions, as I do with mostly everything el=
se.

Cheers.

Peter